Negotiating tolerance in digital classrooms: civic literacy, faith, and gendered participation in postcolonial Indonesia

Digital classrooms in postcolonial Indonesia are civic spaces where tolerance is negotiated through platform visibility, faith-based moral authority, gendered participation, and uneven digital infrastructures. Using focused digital ethnography in one public secondary school and one Islamic faith-based school, this study draws on Google Meet observations, WhatsApp interactions, field notes, and interviews with three students and two teachers. Three interrelated patterns emerged: delayed voice and risky participation in online civic dialogue; faith-based moderation and the moral boundaries of tolerance; and gendered participation through silence, indirect expression, and classroom risk. Civic literacy operated less as a transferable competence than as situated judgement shaped by digital traceability, institutional authority, peer scrutiny, and moral expectations. Faith supported empathy and coexistence while regulating contestation, whereas gendered silence and indirect expression helped students manage belonging, safety, and respectability. The study conceptualises digital tolerance as a negotiated civic practice in postcolonial classrooms.